Privacy, Affiliate Links, Cookies: This site uses cookies, including to identify the country you are visiting from and to measure traffic to third-party sites.

I invest a lot of time and money into running this site, and I use affiliate links to help get a little of this money back. If you click on an affiliate link and purchase anything, I will receive a small commission. These affiliate providers use cookies to understand the referrals I've made and whether an ad was shown. These cookies do not reveal your identity, web use, or other behaviour.

By continuing to use this site, you agree to the use of cookies. To learn more about what cookies are stored and how they're used, you can find my Privacy Policy here:
Privacy Policy

#GuestPost + #Giveaway: Maxine Kaplan, author of THE ACCIDENTAL BAD GIRL, on high school do-overs

Earlier this month, Maxine Kaplan’s debut novel was launched into the world. The Accidental Bad Girl is a good-girl-gone-bad story following newly friendless Kendall Evans, who goes into senior year framed for stealing from a drug dealer. This book deals with identity and reputations, and what exactly being “bad” means. Not to mention having a dose of romance and intrigue. I’m very much looking forward to reading this very soon!

As I sat lusting over this book, I wondered what would I do differently if I could go back to high school? Because I was very much a good girl back then. Yes, sure, there was some very mild experimenting with alcohol – my best friend was from Brazil and liked to party, what can I say – but I was otherwise very much in the Average Nerd. I didn’t go out partying and getting drunk (I think I went to one house party down the road and ended up tending to the drunk people throwing up in the garden), and I certainly had no boyfriends (I was too chicken to grab at the opportunities I know I had). If I could go back, would I live a little wilder?

I asked Maxine this, and this is what she had to say…

If I could have a do-over…

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I would do differently if I could go back in time to high school; about what I would do with a do-over.

There’s a lot I would do the same. I would make friends with the same people. My best friends in high school are my best friends today. I got really lucky there. I’d still play recorder instead of flute in the woodwind ensemble, even though there were no other recorders so I had to play with the oboes and I knew how to play the flute (Have you ever heard the oboe part from Carmen played on the recorder? Don’t.). I would try out for all the plays that I could. I would do every debate-adjacent activity my school offered. I probably wouldn’t study that much, but I would always do my homework.

No, when I think about what I would do differently if I could do high school over, I don’t think about the mechanics of my life. I think about my attitude.

I distrusted everything I did when I was a teenager. I doubted every move I made. I was convinced that there would always be fundamentally wrong with everything I produced. I acted accordingly. And people took me at my word. Why wouldn’t they?

If I could do high school over, I would spend a lot less energy convincing myself that I sucked. Because four years of that took a toll—it took that amount of time and change to break the habit. And I was only able to start writing The Accidental Bad Girl once I did. Because it’s really hard to try when you are destined to ruin everything just a little bit, just enough to count.

Another thing I would do if I could go back in time: I would be myself. I would be as much myself as I could be. Who knows what I could have learned if I wasn’t trying so hard to be who I was convinced I was supposed to be? If I had just accepted my talents and my limitations and thrown my whole self into my passions? I’ll never know.

I might have learned a lot more about people. When you’re stuck hating yourself, it’s hard to even see other people. And an inability to see the people around you can break you, at any age.

The Accidental Bad Girl is about finding the truth behind the contradictions of people you are mandated by law to see every day. I wish I had learned it then, but I had to wait to write my way through.

About The Accidental Bad Girl by Maxine Kaplan

Published by: Amulet Books

Publication date: May 15th 2018

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary

After getting caught hooking up with her best friend’s ex on the last day of junior year, Kendall starts senior year friendless and ostracized. She plans to keep her head down until she graduates. But after discovering her online identity has been hacked and she’s being framed for stealing from a dealer, Kendall is drawn into a tenuous partnership with the mastermind of a drug ring lurking in the shadows of her Brooklyn private school.

If she wants to repair her tattered reputation and save her neck, she’ll have to decide who she really is—and own it.

The longer she plays the role of “bad girl,” the more she becomes her new reputation. Friends and enemies, detectives and drug dealers—no one is who they appear to be. Least of all Kendall.

About Maxine Kaplan

Maxine Kaplan was born in Washington, DC. She and her twin sister spent their early childhoods trotting behind their journalist parents as they traveled around the world, eventually settling in Brooklyn, NY. Maxine graduated from Oberlin College in 2007. Following a long stint in the world of publishing, she has worked as a private investigator since 2009. She lives in her adopted hometown of Brooklyn, NY, with her lovely husband and complex cat. THE ACCIDENTAL BAD GIRL is her debut novel. Follow Maxine on Twitter @MaxineGKaplan

Follow me

Ways to subscribe

Like what you see?

Star ratings

0: Couldn't finish1: Want my precious reading hours back2: Could have done without it3: It was good, but it's not an essential read4: Really liked it and glad I picked it up5: Absolutely loved it and would read again

Things I’ve said

Disclaimer

Unless otherwise stated, I do not claim ownership of any images or other media.

Dani Reviews Things is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.

Dani Reviews Things is also part of The Book Depository's affiliate program.